‘But dreams come through stone walls…’
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Although overshadowed by the later Dracula, Carmilla still stands out as one of the best of the gothic vampire stories. This book includes the story itself in its original form, together with an introduction and four critical essays that set out to analyse the text from a variety of perspectives.
Atmospheric and chilling, Carmilla has everything we could want – gothic ruins, beautiful victim, even more beautiful and extremely sexy vampire, midnight terrors and a climactic graveyard scene. Throw in some very Victorian-style lesbian eroticism and Le Fanu’s fine writing and it’s no surprise that Carmilla continues to be influential on writers and filmmakers even today. It’s been years since I read it last, as part of Le Fanu’s In a Glass Darkly collection, and I found I enjoyed it very much on re-reading.
However the main purpose of this book is to critically re-analyse Carmilla and (somewhat to my surprise) I found the critical essays at least as enjoyable, if not more so, than the story itself. Kathleen Costello-Sullivan’s introduction describes how the story’s psychological aspects, representations of gender and sexuality, and aesthetic and narrative characteristics have led to scholars returning again and again to re-assess the book over the years. She also justifies its inclusion in this Irish Studies series on the grounds that it is generally accepted that the story is drawing parallels with the political and cultural life of Le Fanu’s Ireland.

The first essay is by Jarlath Killeen, who takes this Irish aspect of the story and argues that the picture Le Fanu gives us of Laura and her father as English people clinging to their Englishness while living abroad is representative of Le Fanu’s own position as an Anglo-Irish protestant at a time when the Church was being disestablished and Home Rule was a major topic. So far, so convincing. However, I found Killeen’s positioning of Carmilla within this Irish-ing of the story less convincing. He seems on the one hand to be arguing against a Catholic Carmilla (based on her disgust at the Catholic forms followed by the villagers) and then claiming her as a metaphor for the Catholic aristocracy on grounds that I felt were either shaky or not well enough explained.
(source: wikipedia)
Next up is Lisabeth C Buchelt who examines the ‘aesthetic’ positioning of the book. A subject about which I knew nothing, I found Buchelt’s arguments clear and easy to absorb. She argues that the story ‘forges a connection between popular ideas about the picturesque and what constitutes the vampiric’ and that Le Fanu uses the ‘popular literary trope of medievalism’ in constructing a ‘vampire aesthetic’. My initial reaction to that was to gulp a bit – quite a bit, in fact. However, she then goes on to explain this in a way that meant I not only understood it but was convinced by her argument. An interesting and informative essay.
Lastly, Nancy M West takes us on a run through of the films that have been either adapted from or influenced by Carmilla, with a look at how the lesbianism in the story has been dealt with over the years as social mores and, perhaps more importantly, censorship rules have changed. Lighter than the other essays, this was an enjoyable finish to the book.
In conclusion, if you are interested in the story but not the criticism, then much better to get this as part of In a Glass Darkly. However, I found the criticisms very interesting, much more than I anticipated to be honest, and for me they have enhanced the story without destroying any of its original impact. I therefore heartily recommend this book.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher.
[…] and I really didn’t remember much about it. However, last year I read a critical edition of Carmilla, which is one of the stories in the collection, and enjoyed his writing style a good deal, though I […]
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I came to this from the link in GTL. Liked your analysis of the essays. I wasn’t aware there was vampire fiction before Dracula (which I have, and have read, though I mostly read Australian Lit fiction). Carmilla as a metaphor for British-occupied Ireland especially interesting.
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Thanks for visiting! Yes, I think Dracula usually gets given credit as the first and certainly I think it’s had more influence on the genre in the long term. But this one is a good read and I found the essays very interesting even though I thought one or two of them might have been stretching a bit to fit their own agenda…
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I also came to this link from GTL 😀
I don’t think my library has the critical edition you read. I see this is a novella–just under 100 pages. I also clicked the In A Glass Darkly link. Is Carmilla included in the collection? The Amazon link was pretty vague on what is included in the book. Also, I can’t believe this post only had 7 likes when I got here! This must have been back when you were a baby blog because I know everyone super loves you today ❤
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Yes, it is in In A Glass Darkly and that’s probably the easiest way to get hold of it. Some of the other stories in the collection are good too, though not vampire stories. But looking at Amazon, some of the Kindle versions seem to only contain some of the stories, but I’m sure a paper copy from the library will contain them all. Ha! Yes, this was one of my very first blog reviews back in the days when nobody ever visited and I often felt I was talking to myself… 😉
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I’m pretty sure a lot of bloggers feel like they’re talking to themselves, still! It’s great to have a blogging support system right away so newbies can ask questions. The hard part is it always starts with VISITING other people’s blogs, not just writing on their own.
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Yes, I think quite a lot of new bloggers don’t realise that. I used to seek newbies out and try to encourage them but I’ve got lazy about it recently – I really should make more effort.
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I try to find newbies, too. These days, if someone already has 60 likes on a single blog post, I know they’re doing fine. But a lot of newbies thing their blog is more like a diary that can be picked up and put down at random and have no sense of audience. Any type of blog is excellent, as long as the person understands the different ways blogs work depending on what they’re putting out. So glad you’re still blogging!
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I know – I do think some people don’t really care about an audience. They seem to just use their blogs as an online journal which is fine. But I regularly come across people bemoaning that they don’t get comments and I leave helpful comments saying you need to get out and talk to other people – introduce yourself – and still they don’t do it. And then they give up blogging. There’s a surprisingly small number of people who make it past the first year or so, I find. So I’m always glad that there’s a kind of core group of longterm bloggers who keep the whole thing ticking along… 🙂
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[…] heroes who seduce as they suck the blood of their victims. There is more of the original Dracula or Carmilla perhaps, lust and insatiable hunger, but much darker, more brutal – bloodier. But even nightmares […]
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